


mnemonic

by sakuraba



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Light Angst, M/M, Relationship Study, a few years post-canon (i7's still together blah blah)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 16:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18285758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuraba/pseuds/sakuraba
Summary: those blue flowers only get you so far, after all.





	mnemonic

A MEMORY:

Riku (and he was _Riku,_ then, if just for a moment) in need of a good haircut, a summer of hiatus having rendered him a mess of freckles and long, heavy limbs. He'd let Iori tie his hair back into a little ponytail that day, albeit with a laugh, and much later Iori would realize he’d let Iori see his roots, too, stark and white like a picket fence against the box-dye red. In the fading light, he’d shot up with a daunting suddenness. It's something Iori could never quite get used to, the way Riku moved, like the world was shaping itself only as he maneuvered through it; still, he’d let himself be dragged along, Riku’s fingers wrapped snugly around his wrist like the string of a balloon.

(“Where are we going?” Iori'd asked.

“The kitchen,” Riku had said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And to him, in that moment, Iori was sure it was.)

The sun through the windows made the room into a jar of red honey, cast the kitchen and everything in it in some warm glow. That, Iori thought, more than anything – more than stage makeup or glitter baths or technicolor spotlights – was magic: Riku in an over-sized TOKYO U sweatshirt he stole from Iori’s weekend bag, cream whipped across his face. He was up to his elbows in brownie batter, sleeves shoved up over a sea of dirty bowls and spoons, and Iori thought he was beautiful. Messy, lazy, and dripping gold: a Riku for Iori’s eyes alone.

He wonders now if he was selfish. That Riku, wrapped up in Iori’s clothes with his hair under Iori’s hands, shoving half-baked goop still warm from the oven past the seam of Iori’s lips – he doesn’t exist here anymore. There is no more Riku that is exclusively his, or even any Riku at all; only Nanase-san, with his neat plaids and red roots. The way his breath rattles in his lungs in the middle of the night, how long he works off the clock, how much sugar he puts into his brownies – these things extend beyond the realm of acceptable professional concern.

But still, he has the memory. Sometimes, loath as he is to admit it, Iori laments his inability to take a good photograph; he wonders, unbidden, if Riku still has any of that summer.

**Author's Note:**

> i've written ~20k of i7 fic so i guess it's time i publish Some of it, huh... naturally white-haired nanase twins or bust
> 
> (these two just scream messy break-up and passionate reunion to me, it truly can't be helped)


End file.
